Dead Tyler
"A story as old as time itself; a boy is born, he grows, he dies. The middle is of no consequence. The true test of a man's character is what he does after his heart is no longer beating." Dead Tyler is the colloquial nickname given to a pile of bones discovered in 2104 by Dr. Thom Bennett, a neurosurgeon, who was vacationing in his family's mountain cabin nearby. The bones, of which there were 20, were neatly tucked away in a cloth knapsack made out of a dirty workshop shirt, and carefully placed in the driver's seat of an abandoned pickup truck. The truck was half-submerged in a fog-drenched pond on the outskirts of a small secluded village in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia. Bennett's Testimony Dr. Bennett claimed that when he pulled the knapsack from the front seat of the vehicle, the truck immediately began to sink further into the pond. The locals claimed they had never seen the truck before. The vehicle was not registered, and authorities could find no evidence of a previous owner. With the exception of the bones and shirt, there was allegedly "no hair, fiber, or DNA evidence of any kind" found in or around the truck. The work shirt, which was wrapped around the bones, was covered in dried blood and had an embroidered nametag stitched over the left breast, which read, "Tyler." Local Opinion Many of those interviewed during the resulting investigation reported that they had heard singing coming from the site for several nights before the remains were discovered. The pond, which is called Baker's Pond, has a history of violence; in 1902, it was the site of a mass shooting––14 African American women and children, and one man (Adolf Baker) were lined up along the edge of the pond and shot in the back, their bodies left to rot at the bottom of the shallow pond. The bodies were removed from the site in 1978, when two children––Nicolas and Hannah Winfrey, fraternal twins––discovered a human hip bone jutting up out of the soil near the edge of the pond. The hip belonged to Adolf Baker's wife, Helena; autopsy of Helena Baker's remains revealed signs of brutal torture and rape. Investigators believe Adolf Baker and his family were murdered by a group of radical Christian supremacists who called themselves the New Light Army and were allegedly responsible for hundreds of African American and foreign immigrant deaths from 1876–1934 throughout southern Appalachia. Tourist Attraction After the initial shock, and as a result of the subsequent media coverage, of the discovery at the small secluded pond in West Virginia, locals began calling the area, "Baker's Pond." In 1983, the Mayor of the nearest town made the name official, claiming the pond fell under his jurisdiction since the property surrounding the area fell within the limits of his county's property lines. Baker's Pond became a local attraction, gaining popularity with equal rights, occult and paranormal enthusiasts throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Attendance to the site died down in the early 2010s, and by 2020 Baker's Pond had been resigned to the local history books. The discovery of "Dead Tyler's" remains renewed interest in the site, which has since reopened as a public attraction, now with guided tours. For more information on booking a guided tour, please visit the Baker's Pond Memorial Website. Category:Oddities __FORCETOC__ __NOEDITSECTION__